We all know the sutra where Buddha explains how rare a human rebirth is, and even harder to be reborn as a man. (Can't find it now)

I've been thinking about this, (needless to say )

It raises the question if it is really a "less fortunate" rebirth to be reborn as a privileged, beautiful, rich and intelligent woman, born into favorable surroundings, or an ugly, unintelligent man, born into, let's say, a ghetto. Or the third world.

Or how about the Butler who serves a rich woman?

Or the underprivileged man who goes to the army, goes to war and gets severe wounds which maim and cripple him for the rest of his life?

I can't help it, but I would rather be a woman then. It seems the 'better' incarnation then, where gender is secondary, doesn't it?

Annabel wrote:We all know the sutra where Buddha explains how rare a human rebirth is, and even harder to be reborn as a man. (Can't find it now)

I've been thinking about this, (needless to say )

It raises the question if it is really a "less fortunate" rebirth to be reborn as a privileged, beautiful, rich and intelligent woman, born into favorable surroundings, or an ugly, unintelligent man, born into, let's say, a ghetto. Or the third world.

Or how about the Butler who serves a rich woman?

Or the underprivileged man who goes to the army, goes to war and gets severe wounds which maim and cripple him for the rest of his life?

I can't help it, but I would rather be a woman then. It seems the 'better' incarnation then, where gender is secondary, doesn't it?

Any thoughts?

-Annabel

Thoughts?

Well, maybe that often the "rarity" of human rebirth, or as you are emphasizing here, "male" human rebirth, is not listed alone. Often, it is part of a list of eight "rare" circumstances. These include having the time, conditions, and environment, etc. to practice the Dharma.

And, the usual "the Buddha is mainly speaking to a male audience in a society which actually did discriminate against women", etc. which we all already know.

I've said before, don't take the notion of "male" rebirth as somehow better than feminine as an ultimate. Much more complex. Obviously, to be reborn as a woman with resources to practice Dharma in a matriarchal society, then that would be superior to being reborn as a crippled slave boy without resources in the same society.

But, even then, wholesome kamma is reflected in more than this. Many who are wealthy and privileged are very attached and not happy, whereas those who are not may be less attached.

Like anything, it pays to neither over simplify the situation, but also to apply general principles to actual examples, rather than just taking general principles as ultimates in the abstract.

My recently moved Blog, containing some of my writings on the Buddha Dhamma, as well as a number of translations from classical Buddhist texts and modern authors, liturgy, etc.: Huifeng's Prajnacara Blog.

Annabel said: We all know the sutra where Buddha explains how rare a human rebirth is, and even harder to be reborn as a man. (Can't find it now)

The Buddha said being born into the human state is rare and difficult - I don't recall him saying that being born as a male was even harder. Please back up your statement with a direct link.

SN 56.48 Chiggala Sutta: The Hole "Monks, suppose that this great earth were totally covered with water, and a man were to toss a yoke with a single hole there. A wind from the east would push it west, a wind from the west would push it east. A wind from the north would push it south, a wind from the south would push it north. And suppose a blind sea-turtle were there. It would come to the surface once every one hundred years. Now what do you think: would that blind sea-turtle, coming to the surface once every one hundred years, stick his neck into the yoke with a single hole?""It would be a sheer coincidence, lord, that the blind sea-turtle, coming to the surface once every one hundred years, would stick his neck into the yoke with a single hole.""It's likewise a sheer coincidence that one obtains the human state. It's likewise a sheer coincidence that a Tathagata, worthy & rightly self-awakened, arises in the world. It's likewise a sheer coincidence that a doctrine & discipline expounded by a Tathagata appears in the world. Now, this human state has been obtained. A Tathagata, worthy & rightly self-awakened, has arisen in the world. A doctrine & discipline expounded by a Tathagata appears in the world."Therefore your duty is the contemplation, 'This is stress... This is the origination of stress... This is the cessation of stress.' Your duty is the contemplation, 'This is the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress.'"http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

mettaChris

---The trouble is that you think you have time------Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe------It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---

Annabel said: We all know the sutra where Buddha explains how rare a human rebirth is, and even harder to be reborn as a man. (Can't find it now)

The Buddha said being born into the human state is rare and difficult - I don't recall him saying that being born as a male was even harder. Please back up your statement with a direct link.

...mettaChris

Maybe it is one of the those translations that likes to use "man" for "manussa", as opposed to "human being", or something like that? Nowadays, it seems that the usage of English "man" to refer to "human kind" in a non-gender specific manner, is becoming less and less common.

As the male / female ration is about 50/50, logically the "difficulty" of either is also about the same.

My recently moved Blog, containing some of my writings on the Buddha Dhamma, as well as a number of translations from classical Buddhist texts and modern authors, liturgy, etc.: Huifeng's Prajnacara Blog.

Annabel said: We all know the sutra where Buddha explains how rare a human rebirth is, and even harder to be reborn as a man. (Can't find it now)

The Buddha said being born into the human state is rare and difficult - I don't recall him saying that being born as a male was even harder. Please back up your statement with a direct link.

SN 56.48 Chiggala Sutta: The Hole "Monks, suppose that this great earth were totally covered with water, and a man were to toss a yoke with a single hole there. A wind from the east would push it west, a wind from the west would push it east. A wind from the north would push it south, a wind from the south would push it north. And suppose a blind sea-turtle were there. It would come to the surface once every one hundred years. Now what do you think: would that blind sea-turtle, coming to the surface once every one hundred years, stick his neck into the yoke with a single hole?""It would be a sheer coincidence, lord, that the blind sea-turtle, coming to the surface once every one hundred years, would stick his neck into the yoke with a single hole.""It's likewise a sheer coincidence that one obtains the human state. It's likewise a sheer coincidence that a Tathagata, worthy & rightly self-awakened, arises in the world. It's likewise a sheer coincidence that a doctrine & discipline expounded by a Tathagata appears in the world. Now, this human state has been obtained. A Tathagata, worthy & rightly self-awakened, has arisen in the world. A doctrine & discipline expounded by a Tathagata appears in the world."Therefore your duty is the contemplation, 'This is stress... This is the origination of stress... This is the cessation of stress.' Your duty is the contemplation, 'This is the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress.'"http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

mettaChris

I would love to, but e sangha is down!

I can't retrieve it from my replies, and I can't spend hours searching for it in access to insight.I 'm surprised you don't know it!

Annabel said: We all know the sutra where Buddha explains how rare a human rebirth is, and even harder to be reborn as a man. (Can't find it now)

The Buddha said being born into the human state is rare and difficult - I don't recall him saying that being born as a male was even harder. Please back up your statement with a direct link.

...mettaChris

Maybe it is one of the those translations that likes to use "man" for "manussa", as opposed to "human being", or something like that? Nowadays, it seems that the usage of English "man" to refer to "human kind" in a non-gender specific manner, is becoming less and less common.

As the male / female ration is about 50/50, logically the "difficulty" of either is also about the same.

AnabelTry and think of it like this...The spectrum of sentient life and dukkha is so vast, so huge.The difference between a man and a woman, is in the words of my teacher, 'mere vibration'.You have the incomparable good kamma (or fortune) to be born a human at a time nd place where the Buddha's dispensation is still in existence.Again, in the words of my teacher:Make best use of this wonderful opportunity!Kind regards

Ben

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Ben wrote:AnabelTry and think of it like this...The spectrum of sentient life and dukkha is so vast, so huge.The difference between a man and a woman, is in the words of my teacher, 'mere vibration'.You have the incomparable good kamma (or fortune) to be born a human at a time nd place where the Buddha's dispensation is still in existence.Again, in the words of my teacher:Make best use of this wonderful opportunity!Kind regards

Ben

Of course, Ben. Thanks! I agree with your teacher! (And intend to make good use of it, if possible)

For me this is more a logical issue, not one of my personal life. You know the feeling, when you think:

I know a man who lives a miserable life, and I know a woman, who is his superior in every aspect I can think of.

She is happy, he is not.

You know?

And then it should have been the harder and greater achievement to have become a miserable man instead of a happy woman?

"Female" has traditionally been associated with dependency, receptivity, vulnerability, and passivity...mistaken as weak and "needy" in male-dominated societies - this perceived neediness became associated with craving/desire...thus women became perceived as needy and desiring - craven and dissatisfied...not suitable for spiritual awakening. "Male" has traditionally been associated with assertiveness and independence - freedom...which was believed to be needed in order to be free from craving...so men were perceived as having an inside track to spiritual awakening. Imo, the belief that is found in many old patriarchal cultures that women are inferior to men spiritually has to do with a blurring of the socially-enforced "passivity/need/dependency" that naturally arises when women are subjugated and forced into dependency on men - with "female" . A classic case of mistaking circumstances and projections of the mind for reality.

Last edited by pink_trike on Mon Oct 26, 2009 4:00 am, edited 1 time in total.

Vision is MindMind is EmptyEmptiness is Clear LightClear Light is UnionUnion is Great Bliss

Annabel wrote:Goodness. I don't have a clue what you're saying and feel ignorant.

I'm sure it's my fault...

What I meant was that if there is, say, one chance in a million of being born human then there is one chance in two million of being born as a human male and one chance in two million of being born as a human female. Thus, there is less chance of being born as a male human than of being born as a human.

I agree with Chris. I think you may have misread a sutta. Your version that it is rare or more important to be born male would conflict directly with other suttas. Here is one example from the Samyutta Nikaya, Book V:

5. "What does womanhood matter at allWhen the mind is concentrated well,When knowledge flows on steadilyAs one sees correctly into Dhamma. 6. One to whom it might occur,'I'm a woman' or 'I'm a man'Or 'I'm anything at all' —Is fit for Mara to address."

Though one may conquer a thousand times a thousand men in battle, yet he is indeed the noblest victor who conquers himself. ---Dhp 103

I agree with Chris. I think you may have misread a sutta. Your version that it is rare or more important to be born male would conflict directly with other suttas. Here is one example from the Samyutta Nikaya, Book V:

5. "What does womanhood matter at allWhen the mind is concentrated well,When knowledge flows on steadilyAs one sees correctly into Dhamma. 6. One to whom it might occur,'I'm a woman' or 'I'm a man'Or 'I'm anything at all' —Is fit for Mara to address."

Hi, Notself, thanks for the abone, I am aware of it, agree too.

I'm pretty sure though I haven't misread it. I read it more than once to make sure..

It's just not represented by me in such a way that it is identifiable.

Sorry.

Your version that it is rare or more important to be born male would conflict directly with other suttas.

That is not what I said. It's not about rare,- genders are born in a relationship of about 50/50%.

It's not about more important. Both genders are equally important to procreate.

It's about that Buddha said, it is hard to be born as a human being and harder still, as a man.

It is hard to #### and harder still to ######

It goes on like this.

It also makes sense, because the Buddha said that a Supreme Buddha can only be a Man.

Ven. Analayo has just published an article about this Sutta. The paper translates the MA parallel to the Bahudhaatuka-sutta of the MN in an attempt to show the lateness of the stipulation on the inabilities of women found in nearly all versions of the discourse.

See the attached PDF, the bibliographical information would be: "The Bahudhātuka-sutta and its Parallels on Women’s Inabilities", Journal of Buddhist Ethics, 2009, vol. 16 pp. 137-190.

See endnote 53: Romberg (164) notes that once “the aim was no longer to become anArhat, but to become Buddha ... this shift made, in fact, the situation forwomen worse, because a doctrinal foundation was laid for the necessityof changing the sex before being able to become enlightened.” In fact theBodhisattvabhūmi explains that a woman will not realize the awakening ofa Buddha because already an advanced bodhisattva has left behind wo-manhood for good and will not be reborn again as a female.Harrison (78) concludes that “women ... are gener-ally represented in such an unfavourable light as to vitiate any notion ofthe Mahāyāna as a movement for sexual equality. Compared with thesituation in the Pāli Canon, in which women are at least as capable asmen of attaining the highest goal, arhatship, the position of women inMahāyāna has hardly changed for the better.”

endnote 64Kajiyama (58) concludes that, regarding the listing of inabilities ofwomen, “it is most likely that the dictum did not exist when the Budd-hist Order maintained one and the same tradition, but that it was createdafter the Order was divided into many schools and was inserted intosūtras of various schools.” However, the suggestion by Kajiyama (70) that“the dictum that a woman is incapable of becoming a Buddha aroseprobably in the first century B.C.” may be putting things at too late atime.